Graduate IT recruitment 'no longer values' print-based advertising

Online recruitment boards and social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are now more important than print advertising for IT companies looking to for new employees, according to new research.

A study undertaken by the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCo) discovered that over half of recruitment consultants at the UK's leading IT staffing companies rated social networking sites as more useful than print advertisements for vacant positions.

The research also revealed that none of the companies surveyed believed that print advertising yielded the best qualified or most appropriate candidates when recruiting to roles including graduate IT careers, with online jobs boards identified as most useful by nearly seven out of ten respondents.

"Job boards have proved a very targeted and cost effective way to harvest CVs, despite the initial fears that they would lead to less personal contact between recruiters and candidates," said ATSCo's chief executive Anne Swain.

The growth in popularity of social networking sites in the UK was illustrated by figures released earlier this year by ComScore revealing that the UK has the highest usage of sites such as Facebook, Bebo and Myspace in Europe.

On average a UK internet users spend on average 5.8 hours per month visiting social networking sites, according to ComScore's figures, in comparison to just 2 hours per month in France.